Women who are pregnant often want to continue their careers, and most people fully support their right to do so. The rights of those women to continue working should be respected, but sometimes they aren’t. When that happens, legal action may follow. This is the case with a working mother who plans to take her pregnancy discrimination case all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
When the woman became pregnant she was working for a package delivery company. She talked to the company’s occupational health manager. That person advised her to see her doctor. She did, and her doctor gave her a note recommending a work restriction for the first 20 months of her pregnancy. That restriction was simply that she not lift more than 20 pounds in that time period.
However, the company decided to put her on unpaid leave. They said that her pregnancy was an “off the job” condition, so the light duty accommodations that she had been expecting weren’t applicable.
This decision had multiple repercussions for the woman. The first was loss of income.The second was having to rely on her husband’s health insurance plan. Still another was having to change the hospital at which she would be giving birth.
The woman says that she all but begged the company to let her keep working. Several years have passed, and the daughter she was pregnant with is now seven years old. The woman’s discrimination case against the company is ongoing, and will be heard by the Supreme Court.
When a company doesn’t make the workplace accommodations that workers feel they are due, the workers can bring a legal case. Pregnancy is one circumstance. There are many others. A qualified attorney in Los Angeles can advise you should a similar situation be playing out in a way that’s poised to affect you unfairly.
Source: Huffington Post, “Meet The Working Mother Taking Her Pregnancy Discrimination Case To The Supreme Court” Dave Jamieson, Oct. 31, 2014
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